Farmers Go South by Southwest

Mar 12, 2011

This weekend Austin, Texas will host the best of the best in the realm of film, music and interactive media. You might thing that this conference is only for social nerds, pop music artists and movie stars, but surprise, farmers will be in attendance this year too!

The South by Southwest conference (SXSW) will host an agricultural panel this year and the AgChat Foundation is in the driver seat. The overview of the panel session printed by SXSW reads…

“You probably don’t farm. But you do eat. How do we bridge the communication gap between the 2% of the population who are farmers, and the remaining 98% of people? Technology. The AgChat Foundation is working to end the divide between agricultural producers and the public by training farmers and advocates, developing strategic “agvocacy” campaigns, analyzing data, and funding scholarships. It’s all part of helping everyone understand the production of food, fiber, and fuel in its many faces and how technology is changing everything. The panel will consist of various leaders from the AgChat community, most of which are family farmers. Discussion will focus on the AgChat community: how it was built; its unusual diversity, including people, groups and ideologies sometimes otherwise not in agreement; how it grew beyond its basis in Twitter to other social media platforms; some typical discussion topics; and how the AgChat Foundation functions to equip farmers and ranchers with the tools to be credible online voices. Complete program details can be found at www.agchat.org.”

AgChat Foundation members Jeff Fowle, Emily Zweber, Chris Chinn and Zach Hunnicut are on their way to one of the largest interactive conferences in the world. To talk about the importance of farmers and ranchers connecting with consumers via social networking.

Congratulations to all of those involved with #AgChat this is quite a feat. Your diligence, patience, sweat and tears are paying off on behalf of all agriculturalists. I am proud to have such an amazing representation of agriculture at SXSW.